StackOverflow2013

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POWriting clean, performant code for the iPhone
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copied!<p>I have been developing on the iPhone with Objective-C for a few months now and I have been applying the best-practices learnt and refined while developing applications with Java. These include: designing classes that have a single responsibility, application of design patterns where appropriate, and writing <a href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ShortMethods" rel="nofollow noreferrer">short methods</a> that do one thing only. To me these practices are both beneficial from a <a href="http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1235624" rel="nofollow noreferrer">clean-code</a> perspective and are largely domain agnostic.</p> <p>I have been quite happy with the results. However, a few iPhone developers have independently advised me against this as they say I write too many classes and too many methods. At various times I have been warned:</p> <ul> <li>The stack will blow</li> <li>Too many classes will slow the iPhone down (i.e perceptible by the user)</li> <li>Nested method calls will hurt performance (i.e perceptible by the user)</li> </ul> <p>In practice I haven't experienced these issues. Looking superficially at some <a href="http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/performance-comparisons-of-common-operations-iphone-edition.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">iPhone performance metrics</a> it seems to me that the extra method calls and object life-cycle overhead required to implement common patterns and short methods is unlikely to create any user perceptible delay. However, the advice from other iPhone developers has me spooked a little.</p> <p>I would like to continue learning and refining the domain agnostic programming practices that have served me well in the past, but when developing on the iPhone I don't wish to head down a route that will end in pain!</p> <p>So with regard to this platform - should I forsake some common best-practices and be more conscious of optimizing method call and object life-cycle overheads? Or should I continue following <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth#Quotes_about_Donald_Knuth" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Knuth's</a> advice:</p> <blockquote> <p>Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming</p> </blockquote>

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